This is for the Returning Resident Visa - application submitted offshore in September 2014 in Melbourne, Australia.
I lodged app on Friday; had visa granted on the following Wednesday We paid priority service so it went to Canberra not the processing hub in Manilla.
You need some luck in this life...
Back to Blighty to wife and children in four weeks!

Are you certain Australia would work for you? I am an Australian national with an English wife and children and the move did not work out. Heading back to Blighty in four weeks Missed - classical music, National Trust houses, holidays in France...do not discount all of this. England is a great country - do not let yourselves be influenced by people telling you Oz is the greatest country on Earth. It must work for all of you. Peace, Davidcellist

Mary-Rose: from 1973 to 1989 tertiary education was free for all Australians. In the UK in this period it was also practically free...I know my wife, who is a British national and my age , never paid a penny for it.
Gough did use taxes to pay for it however people such as myself have put a lot of work into making life better for others as a result of our good fortune. I have worked in difficult government schools as well as private schools for over twenty years now.
Remember that very few young people attended university in the 1970s and 1980s and the top institutions such as ANU and the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney were very hard to get into in those days. The proportion of young people doing something tertiary has soared in recent years. Figures from the 2011 census show a 25 per cent jump since 2006, to 932,000 people studying at Australian universities. With the federal government pushing for 40 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds to have a bachelor's degree or better by 2025, student numbers will soon soar to well over a million.
In 1985, when the parents of many of today's students were of uni age, fewer than 140,000 people were studying at university. Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
This is partly why fees were not charged.

Well said. Gough recognised the waste of bright lads such as myself not attending university. He made tertiary education free of course - so I attended the University of Melbourne in the 1980s, hitherto a bastion for the wealthy.
A complete visionary. Pyne and the current Liberal Party - you are careerist hacks and nothing more. Whitlam was a giant.

In the same position as you. Easy answer.
1. Buy ticket - one way - to UK
2. Go to H and R Block or some such firm and file a paper return - you can then claim all tax back after June 2014 until you leave.
Easy!

Totally agree. In the Northern Territory it is very noticeable. There is too much poverty in Oz. This is made worse by these stupid films and ads which well Oz as a middle class paradise; implication being poor old England suffers with rubbish tucker and warm beer and too many chavs. WRONG! What injustice. Have you seen the Bon Beach Bogans running riot? Or the western suburbs of Melbourne? Desperate, mate. Best city on earth? Yes - the eastern half. Talk about a tale of two cities! Makes me wanna weep. This reality needs to be reported more. I am an Aussie by the way!

Hi - I have been thinking about your issue. One thing I must point out is this: you are probably best trying the RRV route first of all and getting ILR/ILE on your Oz passport. Get a good lawyer and tell the truth. Our case was dead simple because what I wrote on the form was the absolute truth. I was only ever in Oz to earn mullah top support my wife and children. I hated being without them. What you write on your RRV form needs to not be slippery legal spin but real honesty. The ECO at Manila will smell half truths a mile off and refuse your application. I think that is why many RRVs are refused...people leave Blighty then change their mind and decide to go back. Our application for RRV had a positive outcome mainly because it was totally honest and transparent.
Peace
David

Spot on - I just read this:
The information posted on PomsInOz.com is general in nature and is not intended to be legal advice. PomsInOz.com accepts no responsibiity for the accuracy of any information given.
Users should ensure that any information given on PomsInOz.com applies to their circumstances. It is recommended that users seek professional advice if in doubt.
So...engage an immigration lawyer who is properly registered and willing to work hard for you or the alternative - using bits of half baked information from forums will all end in tears. Most of the advice we read about obtaining the RRV/ILE from outside the UK was plain wrong. Further, Immigration Officers at Terminal 4 or 5 at LHR or any UK port know very little and are not to be trusted. Many of them are dimly aware of the regulations they should be following. Believe me; I know from bitter experience.
I have a wife and children in England and was granted my RRV/ILE this week after battling for it for six months - all owing to a clerical error of an IO at LHR who stamped me in as a visitor - when I have held ILR for sixteen years!
Get yourself a good Immigration lawyer - to apply yourself is to invite peril.
Please ask me for any hep or any documentation we used...it certainly worked!